squirrellypoo

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"All the World is Green"

-Tom Waits-

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Lestat, you must think me an idiot.

Commissioned by @savagewildnerness

I’m so happy this commission gave me the freedom to be very detailed and, well, fancy. I do love that about commissions, though it obviously depends on the client’s budget.

I want to do Palma Vecchio Armand next, but then it will be two more commissions, after which I’ll open for a few more commissions and otherwise get back to making dolls for general sale.

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So it's Halloween. Does anyone else remember that concert from that one band 30 odd years ago today, The Vampire Lestat or something? That was one bad-ass but crazy concert. I wonder what happened to that Lestat dude. He just sorta disappeared one day.

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How have I never made this connection before??

This brain fart brought to you by this ridiculously fun IWTV x Scooby Doo fic.

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loustat fanfic recs

Just wanted to make a list of some of my favorite loustat fanfics so far. I'll definitely be adding onto this list as I continue to read more.

Anything by cherhorowitz8. This person's writing style is so amazing and every single fic that has been written has had me hooked. I recommend checking out their page, but a few of my personal favs are:

like you mean it in spite of all my faults eligible once more, with feeling of bruised egos and preconceived notions

pocketusn i try to be chill girl, but honestly, i'm not it's like a sucker punch straight to my heart

lesfleursrouges the last day of summer like time stands still

anonymouswords123 none of them your true nature

canonthatdivides je t'ai dans la peau

dirtygoldensoul the saint

pasterquesix before you see me come (back) to me

vitamin_kay cheerful oblivion you sip what the devil's drinking

emblue_sparks reviens, mon coeur

introruins silk chiffon

louisredsuit his rightful home

prouvaireafterdark burning in water, drowning in flame

Post reunion fics we'll be diamond when the golden days are done by rickybobby mon by lydia_eve you are the moon that breaks the night for which i have to howl by peacefrog inertia by chinxe

Also, honorable mention to meet me at the barre by dancermk. I'm not sure what happened, but I no longer see this fic anymore and it was one of my absolute favorites.

All these fics are absolutely amazing and beautifully written in my opinion. There are more that I plan to add that I wasn't able to get around too just yet, and again as I read more I will add as well.

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IWTV fanfiction

The Vampire Detective Agency

and The Case of the Mozart Murderer (complete)

What if Lestat was not Louis's maker?

What if they first met at a crime scene in New Orleans?

What if vampire Louis is a private investigator in New Orleans and Lestat works for INTERPOL in Europe?

Without the baggage of maker/fledgling - just their past losses of daughter or lover preventing them from finding happiness, they find friendship in much the same way as a certain pair of actors did.

Then comes love - and peril ... how will they react when they discover the true identity of The Mozart Murderer and the reason for their spate of crimes across Europe?

Complete story now posted - starting here:

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Ready just in time for Halloween! 🩸🧦🧶 I had the idea for these blood drip socks a few weeks ago and I’m so pleased with how they turned out!

I’ve loom knitted loads of socks over the years but this is only my second colourwork and the first time making my own pixelated pattern. I’d forgotten how much fun colourwork is!! These just flew off my loom, and I’m pleased with the short floats inside, too.

I used the Knitting Board sock loom (fine gauge) at 56 pegs, and @mothyandthesquid’s merino sock yarns in “Midnight Black” and “Ruby”. It’s entirely knit stitches right up until the 2x2 rib at the ankle.

I’ve still got a fair bit left of both colours so it won’t be the last you’ll see of them!

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ok ok ok but the fact wwdits didn't even trend on here upon its release date is both really sad and sort of understandable bc i swear there's no hype around it at all. there's no oomf for this final season and the fact majority of us needed to illegally stream it tells you everything.

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COMPLETE!

Fandom: Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022)

Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive

Relationships: Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac, Armand/Daniel Molloy, Daniel Molloy & Louis de Pointe du Lac

Characters: Lestat de Lioncourt, Louis de Pointe du Lac, Daniel Molloy, Armand (Vampire Chronicles)

Additional Tags: rockstar lestat, Mutual Pining, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Drug Use, Biting, Blood Drinking, Drama, Romance, Canon-Typical Violence, Anal Sex, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Bottom Louis de Pointe du Lac, Top Lestat de Lioncourt, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Friends to Lovers, Post-Episode: s02e08 And That’s The End of It. There’s Nothing Else (Interview with the Vampire TV) -Snippet-

“You can’t control who you love…” I shook my head. My cigarette was running out. Lestat supplied me with another. “We’re much better at talking about other people, aren’t we?”   

“Other people seem less complicated than ourselves.” 

I was silent for a time and so was Lestat. His hand drew lazy circles into my thigh as we smoked, emptying half of a pack between us. I’d come to understand the Dark Gift as a chance to improve upon myself continually. Where humans have a single lifetime to pursue betterment, I will have centuries. I saw myself as changeable. Why couldn’t I look at Lestat and believe the same for him? Why couldn’t I extend the same grace to our relationship? 

In only a few short days, Lestat had shown me a different side of himself. Perhaps a side that had always been present, desperate to be seen, obscured by my insistence to see him solely as a monstrous thing. This quiet tenderness reminded me of my last months as a human when I’d softened to his presence in my life. How it excited and enthralled me. I thought he had called out to me and mesmerized me with a supernatural force so that I would crumble to him easily. He needed to employ no such powers to have this hold over me. 

Fear welled in my stomach. The loss of Claudia was a heavy weight in my chest. We were apt destroyers of each other, prone to entangling others in our madness. If I had never pled at his feet; if he had never wavered; if I had never spurned him; if he had never laid a finger upon us–if, if, if…

But could we be different, now?

“You think too much,” Lestat said. 

“You can’t read my thoughts.”

“I don’t need to. I know you too well. We’re old friends, aren’t we?” He pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Be with me here, Louis. In the present. Or maybe, you’d prefer a piece of the past…” 

Lestat withdrew from me, taking long strides across the room. He smiled devilishly, lifting a record from its cardboard envelope and setting it on the player. The needle scratched first. And then the music played. A clarinet and strings. The waver of yearning in Sarah Vaughan’s voice. Just friends, she sang. Lovers no more. 

“Dance with me, mon ami.”

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I sewed a Wolfkiller Cloak!

I have been a fan of Lestat's Wolfkiller Cloak for 30 years(!!) so when it made a surprise appearance in season 2 of Interview with the Vampire I just knew I would be sewing one for myself.

It looks incredible in the show, but then we also got to see more of it in better lighting during the short, behind the scenes "Episode Insider" for the episode. Essentially, this is a calf-length, blood-red velvet cape with an additional, elbow-length capelet on top, and a fur-lined hood.

But having made capes in the past, I realised that they are really impractical to wear due to limited arm mobility and having either your arms or body freeze through the openings.

So instead of sewing exactly what I saw on screen, I realised I could instead sew a swing coat + little capelet on top with fur-lined hood! And even better - make the capelet removable via hooks at the neckline so that they could be worn together or separately. This was a Eureka! moment for me. I wanted to make something that is somewhat authentic to the look of the original, but also practical to wear as an every day winter coat!

After quite a few muslins, I settled on the Charm Patterns Swing Coat (with some modified sleeves), and a self-drafted capelet (similar to my earlier cape from Claudia S1 NYE look) with a fur-lined hood. I drafted the hood pieces so that the fur lining is longer and wraps around the opening edge. This makes the fur more visible when its down around the shoulders, as in the show.

I used 5m of burgundy velvet and 0.5 m of Arctic Grey Wolf faux fur from CRS Fabrics (UK) - the fur itself was £60/m(!!) so I'm extremely pleased the show version wasn't entirely lined in fur like the book description (scroll down for more on that!). I underlined it for warmth using cotton flannel to block the wind, and found an incredible dark grey skull jacquard lining fabric at Mood Fabrics (US).

The swing coat pattern only has one button at the neck, so I made it count! I found the most perfect wolf head button on ebay and adjusted my bound buttonhole accordingly, but it really is the best statement button I could've ever asked for! The rest of the front opening is closed with enamel hooks and hidden thread bars to not distract from the clean lines when worn open.

In all, this took me about 6 weeks to sew and I am SO chuffed with how it turned out. I usually only take daytime photos for my sewing in order to best show off the details and seamlines, but for this I couldn't resist an additional nighttime shoot, too.

Even better - after I posted it to Instagram, the costume designer for the show, Carol Cutshall, not only said she loves it, but revealed a new piece of iwtv lore - they originally tried the cloak entirely lined in fur, but it was too heavy for Sam to move in!! (Which I can totally believe because mine is super heavy even with a lightweight lining!)

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Making the ✨Lioncourt Gown✨ (Part 4/4)

It's been such a fun project working on the Lioncourt Gown (aka Interview with the Vampire's Lestat de Lioncourt's theater costume -

made into a 1790s women's redingote) and I can finally say that I have finished it. It's done, and I love it. It didn't turn out exactly how I'd planned, but that's how it is with me and sewing. I admire anyone who can just stick to their original plan haha but that person is not me. Usually, when sewing I don't think too far ahead, I just do it until I hit a point where something just isn't working out and have to find a way around it. I'm also self-taught, so my workarounds may not be standard procedures when you actually know what you're doing. But I'm still really, really happy with it, and I did a little photo shoot as soon as it was done.

But anyways, here's the final part of this project.

In my last post, we left off with the still detached but finished collar/yoke and the finished bodice. I attached the yoke to the bodice, and then went on to make the final piece - the outer skirt.

For that, I essentially did the same thing I did with the bodice and the sleeves. I attached the colored satin triangles and stitched them down with the tape. Here is a picture just before I attached the tape:

This process is very time consuming and I had severely underestimated it. I did end up finishing it in a day, but it was the only thing I did that day. You have to stitch super close to the edge or the satin is going to fray and stick out and it's not a pretty look. It did end up happening in a few places, so I had to take the stitches out and redo them. But when that was done, I added red tape to the raw edges of the fabric and finished the skirt.

Then finally, it was time to attach the skirt to the bodice. For that, I gathered it with a quick basting stitch to bring it to the needed width and then had to hand stitch it in place, making sure I was attaching it only to the lining layer so the stitches wouldn't be visible from the right side.

Once that was done, it was time for the first complete try on! For one, I was really excited to see it as a basically completed project, but more importantly, I needed to know where to put the buttons. So I put on all my layers for this (shift, stays, bumroll, two petticoats, the skirt, and the bodice with the outer skirt), and realized... it was a bit smaller than anticipated. It fit, but I'd planned to make it double-breasted and the front panels didn't overlap quite enough to make two button rows possible while keeping them centered. So I ended up deciding in that moment I was only going to do one row of buttons. The original only has one row, so it was fine either way. But while on the topic of buttons, another thing: I'd mentioned in a previous post that I wasn't sure whether to add buttonholes or to fake the closure with hooks and eyes, and I decided to do neither. I was way too scared of the satin fraying if I did button holes and the whole hook and eye system is pretty annoying to do, and since I'm only really gonna wear it once or twice a year I decided to just use some red pins to pin myself into the dress for the day. This protects the satin from fraying and is less work for me. It doesn't look super professional though and while historically accurate for some dresses in the 18th century (some even used to sew themselves, or have someone sew them into their dresses), it was not used on redingotes (as far as I'm aware) for practicality reasons. Redingotes are essentially riding coats and were used primarily outdoors, so buttons was the most common way to close up these types of garments. Still, I did not want to risk ruining the fabric, so I decided to do it this way.

So once I'd figured out where to place the buttons, I sewed them into place. On a side note, I do love the way they look. They're so pretty.

I added four in the front, two on each sleeve and four in the back.

So this is it. It's done.

This was, mostly due to the color details, the most time time-consuming and frankly expensive project I've ever worked on (well, maybe except for my very first dress as I still didn't know what I was doing back then - that one took me literal months hah). But it was so worth it. It's been in my bedroom for a few days now and I smile every time I see it. I still can't believe it's in my possession.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

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Some cat Lestat and Louis interactions inspired by Chinxes' wonderfully adorable fic where Lestat is cursed and transformed into an orange cat!

Fic link below if you'd like to read it! It's a 3 part fic and part 3 should be uploaded soonish 🥰

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Wanting JAM in a cooking-romcom and no one writes it, so Dolphinspirit and I did.

For the love of Chefs! 3/14 ch out so far of feuding chefs enemies to friends to lovers. It's silly, unserious and they cook A LOT.

Those who don't like AU fics, pls enjoy some photoshopped Loustat. We can dream that one day they star in a movie together ❤️‍🔥

[squirrellypoo]

Ravenous is Haunted

Within the lore of Ravenous, eating people causes you to “absorb [their] spirit,” but what does that mean in practice?

Ives mentions that eating someone brave gives you a surge of bravery, which is exactly how Boyd goes from too scared to move to single-handedly capturing the enemy command. The spirit of his fellow soldiers and specifically his commanding officer compel him to do it. But we know that this personality shift is not permanent, it abates. However, I believe that there are other more subtle influences that remain. 

There’s a whole collection of things Boyd, Ives, and Hart do and say that mirror the actions and words of the people they’ve eaten…

The protectiveness that Boyd shows towards the Fort Spencer crew after Ives arrives as colonel is a new trait for him and highly reminiscent of Reich’s protectiveness towards Toffler. From the moment he’s stuck with Ives at the fort, Boyd also immediately decides to murder him, the thing that Reich died furious at him for not doing, and never strays from this mission at all. Boyd and Ives both headbutt each other in their final fight, a Knox fighting move, and Boyd also attempts to strangle Ives at one point, which is Reich’s. Another example that I like is when Hart says to the chickens he’s feeding “run away! run for your lives!” which is what Toffler died doing. These are all small moments in isolation, but together they form a compelling picture. 

For another thing, you have Boyd mentioning to Hart near the end the “nightmares” he’s “still” having about Reich, Cleaves, and Knox. These aren’t just random trauma nightmares, they are specifically about the three people of the Fort Spencer crew that he’s eaten. And, considering how strongly Hart reacts to the mention of this, he is likely experiencing the same thing. Since it is canon that they have actually ABSORBED these people by eating them, I don’t think it’s a stretch at all to call this a haunting. 

Put these together and you have the people who have been eaten haunting the cannibal characters at night and maintaining at least some sway over them by day, often without them even realizing it… Fun stuff!

As far as Ives goes, I think that he is less affected by this phenomenon than Boyd and Hart are. He’s been eating people for much longer than they have, he has no moral compass whatsoever, and he has a very strong personality, so he’s not gonna let a little haunting get to him. That being said, who knows what quirks of his personality we might be able to attribute to people he’s eaten in the past if we knew more about them? I also think that his assumption that he is unaffected by the people he eats is a part of his downfall, and I’ll explain that in a moment. 

The last thing I want to talk about is the bell because that’s what REALLY gets me mmmmmmmmmmm… SO! During Boyd’s fight with Ives, there’s a moment where Ives has fled the room they were fighting in and Boyd doesn’t know where he is, so he’s checking behind all these random doors and not finding him when he hears a bell ringing in the courtyard. He goes out and sees the ringing bell but no one near it. Instead of going towards it where he knows Ives is likely waiting for him though, he walks towards the barn, as if in a daze. When he enters, he sees the bear trap and gets an “Aha!” look on his face. 

Now, who do we know who is associated with both that bell and a bear trap? It’s Reich! He is the only person we ever see ring that bell and (in a deleted scene) he uses bear traps as target practice, shooting at them to snap them shut while Boyd watches. So, at the very least, we can say that Reich indirectly inspires Boyd in that course of action. 

BUT, because I am me, I’d like to take it a step further by proposing that, since Reich is haunting both Boyd AND Ives, he influences Ives to ring the bell (with Ives not consciously thinking anything more of about than “this will surely get Boyd’s attention >:)”) and then influences Boyd to walk over to the barn instead of immediately continuing the fight so he can show him how to end it once and for all. Boyd asked Reich to “tell me what to do,” and Reich answered him!

I did also write a fic about this concept a few years ago if anyone is interested!

[squirrellypoo]

Why you need a COVID booster, and the real reason the UK government isn't giving you one

So, there's an important bit of information about COVID vaccines that I don't think most people are aware of, and which colours their interpretation of what they think is safe and what doctors say.

I got a private booster vaccine earlier this year, and I'd seen people saying that vaccine efficacy only lasted 6 months and wanted to know more. In this age of search deficiency, it's hard to find info about COVID that's come out this year, let alone in the 6 months since I had the booster, but after a bit of digging I actually found the UK Green Book that tells health professionals about how to treat COVID vaccination, and why most people aren't getting seasonal boosters.

The reasons aren't entirely what you probably think, and certainly not what's been reported.

It is not that if you've had the initial vaccine and a booster or two you're protected. It's also not that the vaccines don't help at all - they definitely help! And having them is important! If you think the debate about this breaks down into vaxxer and anti-vaxxer discourse, you've missed some important nuance.

mRNA vaccines have enabled us to provide *some* protection against a type of virus we just couldn't develop vaccines for before: corona viruses. They just evolve too quickly for traditional vaccines. That's huge! But the drawback is that they simply aren't as effective, and immunity wanes a LOT more quickly than, say, the polio vaccine.

How quickly? Not 6 months. 3-4 months. And the booster must be the most recent, newly developed vaccine, because the virus keeps mutating. If, like most of the UK population, you haven't had a booster since before Omicron, you very little protection against several very dangerous variants that have evolved since.

The reason the government aren't providing boosters every quarter for everyone is not that it doesn't make a difference; it's that running a vaccination programme funded by the state in a way that would effectively provide herd immunity (which you don't get from just catching the virus - argh) is just not affordable for mRNA vaccines. It would mean paying for the whole population (or those willing and able) to get vaccinated on the latest variant every 3 months.

If it offered more lasting protection, it would be a different matter, but it doesn't.

THAT'S why our health services have kind of given up. THAT'S why the focus is on reducing 'anxiety', not prevention. They've decided that they can't pay to protect you and that you won't tolerate the mitigation measures (masking, social distancing) you would need to enact to keep safe, and they know your employer won't provide the working-from-home and ventilation solutions that would make that easier for you. A properly socialist government with the guts to protect you could manage the on-going pandemic in our limited vaccine situation, but they're not going to.

GIVEN that you're not going to get vaccinated, this talk about 'anxiety' is a damage control measure. They're worried about a population of people who know they're not protected feeling fucking shitty about it, so having mental health issues on top of probable long COVID.

So the people who are clued in and reading the Green Book carefully are pressing the strategy that we need to focus on making people feel relaxed about catching the virus, and health professionals who aren't as engaged have, like everyone else, absorbed what they want to hear: worrying about the virus is more damaging than the virus itself.

But this doesn't mean you shouldn't vaccinate!

It's true that the protection doesn't last, but you can be strategic about it. Although the Green Book says 3-4 months (with maybe limited immunity (20-50%) up to 6 months), you can also prioritise the most dangerous period: the winter months when you can only see people indoors and cold weather and low light is generally depressing everyone's immune systems. So, October/November is the perfect time to get your one yearly shot, if that's all you can afford.

Me, I'm going for twice a year, because improving my health is my No. 1 priority and catching COVID again would be Very Bad News, given the general state of my immune system. So money spent on protecting my recovery now is worth it, even though I have no income.

Make the choice that makes sense in your situation, but please, please keep in mind that you *do not want to end up like me*. If you want to continue to have a life, and you don't have a medical reason that makes the vaccine untenable, I strongly urge you to take advantage of what protection there is.

And remember: health professionals that are focusing on mental health aren't doing it because it's a mental illness to worry about COVID; it's because there is nothing the NHS can do to protect you.

Here's the Green Book, so you can read for yourself, especially the section on Real World Effectiveness and this on Duration of Protection:

Israel was the first country to demonstrate waning protection from Pfizer BioNTech vaccine showing a decline in protection, even against severe disease, at around 6 months (Goldberg et al, 2021). In the USA, protection against hospitalisation for Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines remained high (around 84%) between 3 and 6 months (Tenforde et al, 2021).

Updated UK analysis to late August 2021 suggested that protection against symptomatic infection due to the Delta variant appears to decline after the second dose, although remains above 50% overall after 5 months. (Andrews et al, 2022b) Levels of protection from AstraZeneca were lower than that seen after Pfizer BioNTech and remained around 20% lower after 5 months. In contrast, protection against hospitalisation and death from Delta variant appeared to be well sustained, remaining around 85% at six months after primary vaccination with both AstraZeneca and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines. For Omicron, protection from primary vaccination appears to decline to very low levels by six months after all three vaccines used in the UK.

PS this all sounds very doom and gloom, but even though big news media aren't covering COVID closely anymore, research is ongoing, and there is light on the horizon.

There's promising results for nasal vaccination that could actually *prevent infection* instead of just helping you fight it. This is super cool, because a big issue with mRNA vaccines is they don't really stop you spreading it, they just help you be less sick. And that's awesome when it comes to preventing hospitalization, but it doesn't help vulnerable people (like me) who have basically been excluded from society because y'all won't mask.

If this prophylactic approach, which has the bonus of being easier and safer to distribute, and likely causing fewer side effects, works (and it's looking good) we might actually be able to end the pandemic!

[squirrellypoo]

I wrote a one shot from Gregory's pov. Love him bc he's a 6000 yo highly-functional and very successful vampire and businessman, but also used to be Akasha's sex slave! And in modern days, he's also Lestat's no.1 fanboy #canon Fareed's serum successfully turned Lestat and Louis into humans for ten days. Of course Loustat then must indulge in debauchery away from the safety of the vampire court. Upon locating them, Gregory found his Prince Lestat hungover and horny. What would a vampire who hadn't had sex in 6000 years do in that situation? Luckily he used to be Akasha's sex slave when he was human…

@vampirefest